French designer Clement Balavoine has created a digital-only process that lets fashion designers create and personalise a garment without ever touching fabric (+ slideshow). (more…)
House in Matosinhos is a residential project designed by nu.ma in 2016. It is located in Matosinhos, Portugal. House in Matosinhos by nu.ma: “The site The lot, where the house is inserted, have a non-regular shape, longitudinal and perpendicular to the street Nossa Senhora da Conceição, Matosinhos. In a consolidated urban area, the surrounding buildings, are, in most of the cases, buildings with a ground floor and attic. These constructions..
With the site facilitating a wide ocean frontage, the design was able to respond with a “Wingspread” type architecture that appears to float over the indigenous dune vegetation, taking full advantage of the panoramic beach and sea views.
The Reserve house is a fusion of Tropical Modern Architecture with a number of bold Futurist elements, including a 4.3m high angled offshutter concrete wall that penetrates through the entrance hall, a splayed “T” shaped feature concrete column that supports a significant cantilevered top storey, and upswept cantilever pools that project out towards the ocean, which all combine to evoke the impression of movement.
The vibrant and eclectic interior spaces exhibit a rich and high-energy fusion of Mid-Century Modern and Industrial design styles that complement the architecture.
What if you could ship your house to anywhere in the world? Our latest Pinterest board is dedicated to houses that are built in a factory and assembled in far-flung locations, such as a remote Finnish island or a Brazilian mountain landscape.
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From the architect. Located on Middle Furong Road, Changsha, the 17-storey Firework Mansion used to be the dormitory building for staff of the former state-owned Hunan Firecrackers & Fireworks Import and Export Company. The company spared no expense to build this mansion and poured the whole building structure with concrete. Nowadays, young people have moved out of this mansion, so those left are mostly retired elderly people.
There is a small 60 m2 two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of the building. The once high-expense complete shear wall structure forms a light tight environment between the rooms and between the apartment and the outside. Even in daytime, the interior is dim and the living room has no light at all. The owners want to transfer this apartment into a family bookstore, and name it “Reedom”.They wish to provide a good place to go for the residents in Firework Mansion.
The small apartment is not qualified to provide environment for reading. We enlarge the window on the outer wall as much as possible; open several holes on each solid wall inside, to let the light and eyesight pass. Meanwhile, the space divided into separate rooms can become an integrated whole. Holes inside the house also invite in natural draught.
The rooms are small. We decide to go the adverse way to change them into smaller ones and create a more sincere and concentrated environment for reading. Thus, we placed bookcases and partitions in the already small living room and bedrooms. To save space, we’d like to use the holes as desks.
In this way, we get many mini reading rooms with interlinked light, eyesight and air, while ensuring privacy. The balcony becomes a most unique place for reading, with a good city view and soft breeze when opening the window.
We once thought about open a scuttle on the roof. However, the plan was finally aborted due to various reasons. In the end, we enlarged a window in the living room. Using a corner of the rooftop platform as the extension of the bookstore, to face it and window of the balcony, a rooftop miniature environment is formed. We have built very good relations with the neighbors. Meanwhile, we are designing better facilities for them to dry clothes and pickled radish on the rooftop.
We hope to finally build the area into a good place to go for the whole community.
The elevator hall of the building has a round window, which just face the outer windows of the Reedom. So we placed the signboard “Reedom” outside it and pasted the logo on it. Seeing from a specific angle, the logo forms other words when linked to the words on the signboard. Meanwhile, we chose a space and printed the QR code of the bookstore onto the former mosaic outer wall of the building.. The code can be scanned from some angle in the store.
Within the sprawling metropolis of Seoul lies an island “forgotten by time.” Sitting beneath the Hangang Bridge on the River Han, the floating lot is now nothing but a relic of a bygone era. Formerly a popular man-made beach and recreational area, the past forty years have seen the site erased from the collective consciousness of the city. To breathe new life into the island, the Nodeul Island Dream competition was opened, and Seoul-based MMK+ and Taehyung Park’s proposal ‘Reconfigured Ground‘ took first prize.
The proposal looks at the evolution of the island from constructed paradise to overgrown void. Throughout this evolution, an ecosystem has developed and gradual formal changes have taken place. The remote character of the island – currently accentuated by its abandonment – is to be transformed into a positive condition, as it becomes a cultural haven within the bustling city. The architects’ design aims to “restore the wild nature of the island while re-programming its natural features as a cultural venue,” once again making it a destination point for inhabitants of the city.
The project proposes a reconfiguration of the ground levels of the site, with a distinct upper and lower level hosting diverse public programs. The ground plane itself has been reconfigured to soften the jarring height difference between the island and the bridge which runs overhead. Two distinct circulatory loops – the upper and lower – form the basis for the distribution of new programs.
Though linked by open plazas and visual connectivity, the upper and lower level host distinctly separate programs. The upper loop is a smaller radius and connects the eco-learning center, Han River observatory, and the Nodeul Forest. In contrast, the larger lower loop wraps the whole island with a promenade, urban beach, bike center, and observation deck.
The upper-level hosts open public space, intended for temporary installations and gathering points. In contrast, the lower level is designed to accommodate start-up offices, shops, restaurants, plazas, market street, and a 500-person performance hall. Traditional Korean village settings (referred to as Maeuls) evolve here: where a small community of different programs and user groups coexist in harmony.
MMK+ said in a press release: Nodeul Maeul’s new structural system will be composed of a 10m x 10m modular precast concrete grid, integrated with a pre-installed flexible MEP system. The expandability of the system allows for a ”participatory design”, where the architect provides the framework, and the spaces are defined by a response to the users’ evolving needs. This dynamic, community-driven, typology brings unique opportunities for users and visitors, creating a place filled with historical values and limitless potential.
The existing island forest is augmented by a new planting strategy, designed to breathe new life into the established ecosystem. MMK+ and Taehyung Park propose a four staged approach comprised of; the preservation and removal of decaying plants, seeding and nurturing new plant-life, adding programmatic planting, and curating edge-defining planting. Diverse outdoor landscape programs are interlaced into the circulatory loops, enabling users to move through different natural and built conditions as move across the island.
For more information, check out the competition website, including the other prize-winning proposals.
News via MMK+.
Rio 2016: after it hosts the women’s basketball tournament at this summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, this venue will be overhauled halfway through the games to accommodate fencing (+ slideshow). (more…)
Thinking about investing in some new technology? Creativeboom has compiled a list of 20 dream gadgets for designers that will either make your workflow more efficient or just be a whole lot of fun to play around with.
Gadgets include maker-targeted machines like the Glowforge 3D Printer and the 3Doodler, along with innovation in sketching technology like Moleskine’s Smart Writing Kit and the Pantone Capsure for finding the right hue from real life surfaces. There are also some products that will make your life easier, like Satechi’s USB Hub that provides you with 4 additional USB ports.
Find the complete list of gadgets at Creativeboom, here.
The Ultimate Guide To 21 Products You Need Now
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In sight of a comfortable house for the whole family, the owners decided to renovate an old house from the early 50s. The architects from Lab Arquitetos developed the project in order to integrate the outdoor area to the inside of the house, making it possible the usage of pergolas, balconies and wide windows.
Searching for an aesthetical look that refers to the northern Argentina fields and grasslands, rustic materials such as wood were used, contrasting with the contemporary furniture and integrated rooms. The original laundry area gave place to a living area with an open garden and grill area, both with view to the refurbished swiming pool.
The fence and low walls were removed so all rooms could be integrated, giving place to a exuberante landscape.
The lower plan was expanded, conecting the living room and balcony area through the pergola area. Made of corten steel , the pergola has it´s structure apparent and also sustains the upper floor new balcony. One of the greatests urprises during construction was the chance to leave the existing roof structure apparent, requiring only some repair and maintenance in some points and a new painting finish.
